Thompson Would Reward Teenage Parents Who Marry

Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, who sparked controversy by
introducing the first state plan to tie welfare benefits to school
attendance, is now proposing to improve benefits for teenage parents
who marry, while limiting payments to unwed teenage mothers who have
more than one child.

Officials of the Thompson administration say the effort, which
appears to be the first of its kind, seeks to promote and preserve
families by removing disincentives to marriage and employment for
welfare recipients and reducing incentives for unmarried teenagers to
become pregnant and have more children.

Besides paying larger grants to teenage couples who marry, the
"parental and family responsibility initiative" would allow them to
earn up to $14,500 a year without losing welfare benefits.

The proposal also would eliminate the current prohibition against
welfare participation by couples in which neither partner has an
employment history, and require both parents to participate in
education and training programs under the federal Job Opportunities and
Basic Skills Training program.

In addition, all Aid to Families With Dependent Children recipients
under age 20 and their spouses or noncustodial fathers would be
required to participate in classes on parenting, human development, sex
education, and independent living.

The plan also would require minor mothers to live at home and offer
incentives for counties to strengthen paternity establishment and
child-support enforcement.

Administration officials say the effort would "establish incentives
for low-income youth to delay pregnancy and parenting, to finish
school, to form a two-parent family, to work, and to be financially and
socially responsible parents."

But critics warned last week that the Governor's approach could have
unintended consequences, such as encouraging teenagers to marry for
the wrong reasons, stay in abusive situations, or seek abortions.

"I think we have a good goal and a bad program," said George
Gerharz, deputy director of the Social Development Commission, an
intergovernmental community-action program in Milwaukee County.

The Republican Governor's plan must first be approved by the
Democrat-controlled legislature and be granted a waiver by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

The controversial plan, which would not apply to current AFDC
recipients, would affect about 1,600 new AFDC. applicants under age
20 in four counties slated for a pilot: Milwaukee, Rock, Douglas, and
Juneau.

While the current system allows a Wisconsin mother with one child to
receive $440 per month and $80 for each additional child, Mr.
Thompson's plan would cap the payment at $440 after the first child.
Teenage parents who married, however, would receive about $80 beyond
that per month, bringing the annual grant for a married couple with one
child to $6,200--the same level now awarded to a single mother of
two.

Mr. Thompson maintains his plan would reinforce the "responsibility
of parenting." But critics say it raises the specter of "shotgun"
marriages.

Assemblywoman Rebecca Young, who is chairman of the House committee
on children and human services, said she supports "removing barriers to
getting AFDC for young families where a young parent does not have
work experience."

"However, to require teenagers either to be married or to live at
home is an experiment in social engineering," she said, arguing that
the plan could present an untenable choice for teenage mothers who are
the victims of sexual abuse at home or by a partner.

Ms. Young also said the move could sway more teenagers to consider
abortions, which she said is "inconsistent with the Governor's previous
and very staunch opposition to abortion."

The budget plan Mr. Thompson released this month, which contained
the welfare proposals, also called for a substantial increase in funds
for adolescent-pregnancy prevention. It stipulated that programs must
not counsel about abortion or contraception, but instead must focus on
abstinence.

Ms. Young also said capping payments to mothers with more than one
child--who already fall below the poverty line--would unfairly penalize
children and "increase the number of homeless families that have to
rely on food pantries by mid-month."

"Forcing young people or even encouraging them to get married when
they are teens for financial incentives is really the wrong way to go
about encouraging them to be responsible," added Mr. Gerharz.

But state officials say their aim is not to force couples to marry
or penalize mothers for having more children, but to remove barriers in
the welfare system to those who want to marry.

"What we're saying is that if couples want to get married and raise
a child in a family setting, we think that's terrific," said Stephanie
L. Smith, a spokesman for the Governor.

Another of Mr. Thompson's controversial welfare experiments drew
scrutiny this month, meanwhile, when researchers conducting a federally
mandated evaluation reported that "serious omissions and errors" in
records were preventing them from assessing the success of
Learnfare.

The three-year-old program, which seeks to keep students in school
by cutting the welfare benefits of families whose teenage children have
frequent unexcused absences, is in the process of instituting new
procedures to investigate and verify student absences in response to a
legal challenge. (See Education Week, Nov. 7, 1990.)

The interim report on Learnfare by the Employment and Training
Institute of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, which is part of
a study to be completed in 1993, also showed that nearly half the
teenage parents on welfare who have not graduated from high school are
exempt from school attendance.

Vol. 10, Issue 22, Page 18

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